Salt Flat Grave

Tire tracks cross the salt flat
like stripes on the back of a skunk.
The Polaroid is brittle with sun.

The old man drops the aluminum foil
and puts the gum in his mouth.
He chews to get spit enough to speak.

“Godforsaken, he said this place was.
Couldn’t wait to join the Army.
Then he said that place was just as bad.”

At his feet the sun-glare throws
the shadow of a concrete cross
footed in a foreign desert.

brittle, aluminum foil, polaroid, skunk, salt

--for Poefusion


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